The EU's New €3 Customs Duty, Explained
A flat charge per item, not a percentage — and completely separate from the VAT you already pay at checkout.
Updated 19 Sept 2026
Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 adds a flat €3 customs duty per distinct item in an order under €150, when the seller is IOSS-registered or the parcel arrives by post. It runs from 1 July 2026 to 1 July 2028 as a temporary bridge before a wider EU customs reform removes the €150 threshold entirely, and it is separate from — not a replacement for — the VAT that has applied to EU imports since 2021.
What does this mean for you? Work out your own number: EU import duty calculator
If a parcel from outside the EU used to arrive with nothing added at the border as long as it was under €150, that changed on 1 July 2026 — though not in the way most coverage of it describes.
What the regulation actually says
Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 adds “a customs duty of EUR 3 per item in a consignment the intrinsic value of which does not exceed a total of EUR 150” — replacing the duty-free treatment that threshold used to carry. Three details matter more than the headline number:
- It’s per item, not per order. A consignment of 5 distinct products pays 5 × €3 = €15 in duty, regardless of whether the order totals €20 or €149.
- It only applies through two channels. The seller has to be registered for the EU’s Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) scheme, or the parcel has to arrive through the postal network. A courier shipment from a seller who isn’t IOSS-registered doesn’t get the flat €3 — it goes through the standard customs procedure instead, with duty based on the product’s actual tariff classification. Major platforms like Temu, Shein and AliExpress register for IOSS on their own sales, which is why this rule is the one that usually applies to orders from them.
- It’s temporary. The regulation runs from 1 July 2026 to 1 July 2028. It exists specifically as a bridge measure while a larger EU customs reform — one that removes the €150 threshold altogether — is phased in.
It doesn’t replace VAT — it stacks with it
This is the detail easiest to miss: import VAT on parcels under €150 already applied to every EU import regardless of value, ever since the EU scrapped its old €22 VAT exemption back in 2021. That VAT is charged by the seller at checkout under the same IOSS mechanism, at the destination country’s own rate — anywhere from 17% in Luxembourg to 27% in Hungary. The new €3-per-item duty is a completely separate, additional charge on top of VAT that simply didn’t exist before July 2026.
What happens above €150
Nothing about this specific rule — the flat duty only exists for consignments at or under €150 in the first place. An order over that threshold has always gone through the standard EU customs procedure, with duty calculated from the actual tariff classification of what’s inside. That calculation depends on the specific product category and isn’t a flat rate, which is why it isn’t covered here.
Not a UK rule
The UK left the EU in 2020 and sets its own low-value import rules, entirely separate from this EU regulation. A parcel delivered to a UK address isn’t affected by Council Regulation 2026/382 at all.
Run your own order through the EU import duty calculator to see the duty and VAT separately, rather than guessed as one combined number.